Baby Boy Shower Details

 
We (my family and I) had a great time putting on a shower for our niece Kayla.  I turned out so cute and I am delighted to share the details with you today.  Kayla knows she's having a boy and chose shades of blue with a sailboat motif for her baby's room.  We just took that idea to create the invites and decorate for the shower.  I used the sailboat from the New Arrival cartridge, but added a couple of "brackets" to the sails to keep them attached to the mast with my Gypsy.  This made cutting out tons and adhering them much easier, as they were then in 1 piece instead of 3!
After the invites went out I made a design for party favors.  We wrapped up Hershey bars with a cute little baby (New Arrival).  I stamped the sentiment and used a black pen for the faux stitching.
Some time ago I picked up several packages of chipboard star albums in the clearance aisle of M's.  They came in very handy for making the banner that hung above the food table.  I attached the letters to the star shapes with foam, so it's a bit dimensional.
The morning of the shower was so hot (South Carolina!).  We held the shower in my sister's backyard, near her pool, under tents.  We had a gigantic fan on one end that kept us relatively cool.  At one end we set up the gift table with our diaper cake in the center under a clothesline of baby clothes.  I love this idea because the clothesline is so adorable and easy - and it's part of the mom's gifts, too!  I had precut all the pieces for the diaper cake beforehand and my niece Angie helped me assemble it while the rest of the family went shopping for all the great menu ingredients.  We were quite proud to show off the finished product when they returned.

Another decor item I made that I really liked was the strings of pennant or circus flags.  This was really easy!  I hand cut triangles from my scraps of blue paper and then just sewed them together on my sewing machine.  We put these in various places, including the fence next to the gate where guests entered into the backyard shower.  Each guest had her photo taken here and these photos were later added to an album page.  I pre-made these pages also for Kayla's baby shower album.  I designed the page with two journaling boxes on my computer and then printed them at home.  I added the mat for the guest's photo and provided lots of cute paper cuts (Thank you, Cricut!) and adhesive for each guest to decorate their page and write a special note to Kayla and baby. 

Some of the other decor items: we covered water bottles with blue paper and a sailboat; paper sailboats on tooth picks scattered amongst the mini snacks and desserts; an awesome sailboat cake (my sister Kathy made it!); and don't forget to check out the baby carriage watermelon (also by Kathy!).

I had such a great time designing the decorations and an even better time with my sisters and nieces setting up for the party and during the party sharing joy with Kayla as we all anticipate the arrival of her baby boy!